Meta-owned messaging platforms WhatsApp and Instagram experienced a widespread outage on Wednesday night, disrupting services for users across the globe. During the outage, users attempting to access the platforms via browser or mobile app encountered error messages, preventing them from logging in and utilizing features such as messaging, audio, and video calls.
According to reports from Downdetector, which aggregates status reports from various sources including user submissions, there were over 17,000 incidents of users reporting issues with WhatsApp. The impact was significant in regions such as India, the United Kingdom, and Brazil, with more than 30,000, 67,000, and 95,000 users respectively encountering problems with the platform.
Similarly, around 3,200 users in the United States experienced difficulties accessing Instagram. WhatsApp addressed the outage via a post on social media platform X, acknowledging the ongoing issues and assuring users that efforts were underway to restore services to full functionality as quickly as possible. This incident follows a series of outages in March that affected various Meta-owned platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, highlighting the challenges posed by technical disruptions on widely-used social media networks.